[Villa Pestillini, 32 via della Piazzola, Firenze]

ThankPivot ClubTSE gives poetry reading for;a1 youFogerty, ElsieTSE gives poetry-reading to oblige;a5 for your letter of the 26th, which I found at home last night late on returning from the ‘Pivot Club’ (Miss Fogerty’s graduates and pupils) which went off very well indeed, and I am satisfied that it was tactful of me to give them the reading. AuntHinkley, Susan Heywood (TSE's aunt, née Stearns)shares family drama with TSE;b5 Susie’s letter1 amused me (if amuse is the right word) in the way you will have expected: it is so strange that Berkeley Place should have remained in a changing world as one of the fixed immovable points, both physically and spiritually. I put ‘amuse’ in quotes, because there is something very painful to me about all the people who remain unchanged, in that way, limited by exactly the same frontiers. It is odd however that she should devote a whole letter to a burglary, and say nothing about the kidnapping threat to Barbara’s grandson. However, I was pleased by her extremely affectionate tone to you.

IGalitzi, Dr Christineher mannerisms;b8 agree with you about Christine Galitzi. I am surprised however that you should say that most people think her so favoured by fortune: she struck me from the first as an unhappy and unsatisfied person. It is painful to see anyone with such talents and such knowledge, or at least information, so very confused about herself. Her ‘classification’ seems to me only an attempt to rationalise, in the sociological terms that she knows, her own dissatisfactions: it rings very hollow. There is something pathetic about her so very un-French French style, I always think, so farci with phrases as if she wanted to use her whole vocabulary at once; there is something artificial too in her mentioning the name of an American play and then translating it into French! (I am not sure that she has translated it right). This will give me the occasion for writing to her, as it is so long since I received her last letter that I am ashamed to answer that.

DontTrouncer, Margaretpresses manuscript on TSE;a2 feel any responsibility for Mrs. Trouncer. She would have turned up anyway, as I had met her myself once. There are no social complications: she brought a book she has written about Louise de la Vallière, the first maitresse en titre of Louis XIV, whom she depicts as a most saintly person, who ended her life as a Carmelite nun. HerTrouncer, MargaretA Courtesan of Paradise;b3 style is florid, her manner of description luscious, as the title ‘A Courtesan of Paradise’ will indicate. The material is certainly interesting, though the style nearly damns it. She revels in voluptuous description, but says in the preface that she has not described the love passages as she would have liked to do, because ‘she has her soul to keep’. Well, well. Apparently Mrs. Trouncer is not rolling in money, because she said what she wanted was £50 to help her to move house in March. I am getting the book read by a specialist. ThenIovetz-Tereshchenko, N. M.;a1 there is Mr. Iovetz Tereschenko [sc. Tereshchenko], who has written a book on adolescent psychology.2

TooSpender, Stephenand lunching young men generally;b1 many business lunches. Stephen Spender to-day, whom I am fond of, but I find these young lunching men somewhat trying to lunch with; they have bigger appetites than I, and I eat more than I want to keep them company, and I only like half a pint of beer at lunch, and they can drink a pint, and a glass of sherry as well, and then I am sleepy until teatime.

I am so glad you are enjoying Florence. I believe it does agree with you better than Rome.

ITime & Tide;a7 send THE END of my T. & T. correspondence. AlsoLewis, Wyndhamapparently numbers TSE among enemies;a5 the first instalment of Wyndham Lewis, who is doing the notes this month.3 This does not strike me as very good. Wyndham is very unbalanced: I hear that he includes me among his enemies now.